Twin Towers Column Stubs, Once Amputated, Are Now Being Protected

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Published: March 22, 2006

The last time Luis F. Mendes dealt with the brawny box columns around the base of the World Trade Center towers, he couldn't cut them down fast enough.

He was an assistant commissioner in the City Department of Design and Construction, and part of his mission in 2002 was to reduce the protruding columns to stubs and create as level a grade as possible for recovery workers and vehicles at the bottom of the trade center pit. The steel was so thick, he recalled, that each column took about a day to sever.

Now, as director of construction at the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, Mr. Mendes, 47, is one of the officials overseeing the creation of a temporary enclosure to protect those column stumps, which have since become both an archaeological treasure and a political lightning rod.

The enclosure is a kind of egg crate with L turns, several hundred feet long, made of wood, rubber and gravel. It will shelter the column remnants (and the 10-foot-wide concrete slab at the edge of the towers' footprints in which they are set) during construction of the memorial and memorial museum.

Workers are exposing the remnants of the columns, which resemble shallow open boxes more than two feet square, with four-inch-thick steel sides. A rubber membrane is then laid down. On top of that goes a frame made of 2-by-10 boards in a grid pattern that leaves an opening for each column.

Except for those openings, which will permit inspection of the remnants during construction, the framework is then filled with gravel to give it strength and stability. Another rubber membrane is laid down over that and then workers finish the enclosure with a layer of plywood.

''We are taking care,'' said William H. Goldstein, the executive vice president for construction of the World Trade Center Memorial Foundation. ''This is more than traffic cones.'' The foundation, working with the development corporation, is building the memorial and memorial museum. The contractor for the preparatory work is Intricate Construction of Thornwood, N.Y.

When the memorial opens, after the protective enclosure is removed, most of the 84 column remnants from the north tower and about half of the 73 remnants from the south tower will be visible and publicly accessible on the main level of the museum, 70 feet below ground.

Preservation-minded relatives of 9/11 victims, like Anthony Gardner, who led a campaign three years ago to save the column remnants, believe this gesture does not go nearly far enough. They favor keeping as much as possible of the towers' remaining structural foundations and are suing in State Supreme Court to stop the memorial project until alternative designs are considered. A hearing is scheduled tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the protective enclosure around the north tower footprint is nearing completion. Could Mr. Mendes have imagined in 2002 that he would one day treat these column stubs like revered artifacts?

''We were trying to get to the bottom of the pit and get all the debris searched by firemen,'' he answered. ''We were concentrating on that more than anything else.''

Photo: The stubs of the original beams of the World Trade Center are being temporarily encased in wood and gravel to protect them during construction. (Photo by Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)